1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to an image forming apparatus. More specifically, the present invention relates to an image forming apparatus such as a photocopier, printer, or multi-function printer that is shared and used by many users via a network
2. Background Information
In recent years image forming apparatuses such as printers, photocopiers, and so on, have become a necessity within companies and elsewhere. Also, generally a single image forming apparatus is shared among and used by several users via a network such as a local area network (LAN) or the like. It is not uncommon for one image forming apparatus to be shared by more than 30 people.
In these circumstances documents printed by several users become mixed and accumulate in the sheet discharge tray of the image forming apparatus. This can occur when several print jobs occur at almost the same time, or when users do not quickly take their printed documents.
When this situation occurs, each user must spend time finding and retrieving his/her printed document from among the accumulated printed documents. When more than 30 users share a single image forming apparatus as described above, several hundred pages of printed documents can become accumulated in the sheet discharge tray, so finding and retrieving one's own printed document can require a large amount of time.
Therefore, to solve this type of situation, technology has been disclosed in, for example, Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 2005-89112, in which every time a print job is printed an index is printed, or a tab is provided in the sheets. Here, an index is, as shown in FIG. 19 for example, provided on a sheet by printing with the user's name only printed at the top edge (within the circle C1). Also, a tab is, as shown in FIG. 18 for example, an external caption provided on the top edge of the sheet (within the circle C2), within which the user's name or similar is printed. Using these indexes or tabs, users can select their own printed documents from among many accumulated printed documents.
However, the conventional art as described above has the following problem points.
First, the technology for applying the tabs as described above requires providing hardware resources within the image forming apparatus for applying the tabs. However, providing the hardware resources in this way has the problems that the size of the apparatus is increased, and the apparatus is made more complex.
Next, a problem point with the technology for printing indexes is the cost of sheets for printing. In other words, every time a print job is executed as described above, an index is printed. When only three documents, for example, are accumulated in the sheet discharge tray, each user can easily retrieve his/her own printed documents without printing indexes. However, in the conventional art as described above, three index pages would be printed, which is a waste of sheets.
In view of the above, it will be apparent to those skilled in the art from this disclosure that there exists a need for an improved image forming apparatus. This invention addresses this need in the art as well as other needs, which will become apparent to those skilled in the art from this disclosure.